

Michael Dowden
Technology Leader, Author, and International Keynote Speaker
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Michael is an international keynote speaker, Sr Engineering Manager at LegalZoom, and founder of Andromeda Galactic Solutions and FlexePark. As a leader with 30 years in the technology industry, he has worked alongside more than 100 companies to build human-centered solutions. Michael is a Google Developer Expert and Microsoft MVP, and is the author of Programming Languages ABC++, Approachable Accessibility, and Architecting CSS.
Area of Expertise
Topics
It’s About Time! Practical examples of time zones in TypeScript
From planning international travel to ordering a pizza, time zones affect us all. If your software displays dates and times to users, at some point in time you’ll need to deal with time zones. Your server, the user, and their location of interest can all be in different time zones making this tricky, especially if your data isn’t normalized.
This talk will use working code examples in TypeScript to show ways to represent time and handle time zones, uses of the JavaScript Date object and Luxon date time library. We’ll also introduce Temporal, the upcoming ECMAScript standard.
The examples will be based upon my experience building applications in parking, scheduling, and logistics with complex requirements for date and time representation, and I look forward to sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Go Live: Releasing software to your users
In DevOps we spend a lot of time discussing the best way to deploy software and the various ways to monitor our deployed application, but sometimes we overlook the Release process. When we release software we’re not so much performing an engineering task as we are supporting a business function with technical expertise.
In this talk we’ll break down some of the objectives of a release along with the corresponding product and business activities and how we can leverage DevOps to support them. We’ll talk about the importance of UX and how our approach to releases can impact our users.
Playing with Fire : Build a Web Application with Firebase
Come see how easy it can be to use Google Firebase to take your app idea from concept to production. In this session, we will build a messaging application together showing all the steps required to launch a new serverless web application with Firebase.
While we build this web app you will learn about many Firebase features, including:
* database
* cloud functions
* cloud storage
* hosting
* authentication
* security rules
* client and admin SDK
You will also need a Google account and mobile device or laptop to participate in the interactive demo.
The Pants Paradox
From the very beginnings of western civilization, clothing has been used as an indication of a person’s social standing. This fast-paced, pun-filled talk explores this idea by focusing on the use of pants, set against the backdrop of a global pandemic, while exploring the role of technology in topics of social inequity.
From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
As developers we spend much more time reading code than we do writing it. It’s important that our code conveys its meaning clearly, not just to the computer but also to other developers. Everything we write tells a story, and our code is no different. From meaningless variable names to confusing comments, the code we write can be a horror story that leads to frustration, bugs, and delays.
In this session we'll discuss the importance of empathy when writing code, and the impact this can have on inclusivity. We'll look at concrete examples of poor naming, obfuscated logic, and other anti-patterns. And finally we'll cover specific tips for writing fairy tale code that future developers will want to read. We'll also cover processes for implementing these tips within your team so that you can all live happily ever after.
Winning as the Home Team
The process of building Great Software can be broken down to a number of processes and attributes that center around communication. From requirements to code to documentation, standups to retrospectives, we build our software teams around specific interactions and communication channels. The typical picture of a software team shows a group of people collaborating around a marker board in a room full of computers. But is this really necessary?
This talk will break down the processes of building software together as a team, and show how things change when you are no longer sharing the same room. You will learn about the practices and tools one company uses to successfully run remote-only software projects, with developers that work from home. From leadership styles, to meeting schedules, to coding practices, we’ll get into specifics about what it takes to be a winning team when everyone is working from home. And finally, there will be a comparison between working from home in 2019 and 2020.
First delivered as a webinar for Team Rockstars IT Webinar, Netherlands
Google North America Connect
The Pants Paradox
Serverless Architecture Conference London
Advanced Serverless Workshop
Serverless API with Firebase
Served on Advisory Board
DevOps Con London
DevOps and Serverless — Friends or Foes?
CFE.dev
Playing with Fire: Serverless PWA with Firebase
JavaScript without barriers
Build for Accessibility With Angular
Serverless Architecture Conference Berlin
Advanced Serverless Workshop
Serverless API with Firebase
Served on the Advisory Board
API Conference Berlin
Serverless API with Firebase
Serverless Integration with Zapier
DevOpsCon New York
The Serverless Company
Code Automation with Bitbucket
International JavaScript Conference
Building for Accessibility with Angular
ng-conf
Workshop: Write Once, Run Anywhere with an Angular PWA
Cincy Deliver
Winning as the Home Team
DevOpsCon
Thriving in Chaos
Code Automation with Bitbucket
Angular Community Meetup
Hosted, not Served
DevOps Pro Europe
Code Automation with Bitbucket
Serverless Architecture Conference
Advisory Board Member
Thriving in Chaos
Implementing Authorization Models in Firebase
Hosted, not Served
DevOpsCon
Code Automation with Bitbucket
Firebase Summit 2021
Video Presentation: Implementing Authorization Models in Firebase
Tennessee Developer Conference 2021
Talk: From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
Talk: Hosted, not Served
Google Developer Club @ Dallas Baptist University
Demo: Playing with Fire
Cincinnati Software Craftsmanship
Talk: Winning as the Home Team
VoxxedDays Romania 2021
Talk: From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
Serverless Architecture Conference
Advisory Board Member
Speaker: Winning as the Home Team; Hosted, not Served
API Conference
Winning as the Home Team
DevSpace
Winning as the Home Team
Reliable Web Summit
Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
Angular Community Meetup
ZAP! API Integrations with Zapier
CODEstantine Meetups
Playing with Fire : Build a Web Application with Firebase
Serverless Architecture Conference (Online)
Advisory Board Member
The Serverless Company (Keynote)
From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
ng-conf
Build for Accessibility with Angular (Workshop)
Serverless Architecture Conference (Berlin)
Advisory Board Member
Playing with Fire: Build a Web Application with Firebase (Workshop)
ZAP! API integrations with Zapier
DevOps Conference (Berlin)
Agile for Remote Teams
Leadership or Landmines? Paving the Way for Innovation
DevSpace
Keynote: Pants
DevOps Conference (London)
Leadership or Landmines? Paving the Way for Innovation
From Monolith to Serverless: Rethinking your Architecture
Serverless Architecture Conference (The Hague)
From Monolith to Serverless: Rethinking your Architecture (Keynote)
DevOps Berlin (Online Edition)
Agile for Remote Teams
Team Rockstars IT
Winning as the Home Team
University of Louisville Developer Student Club
Playing with Fire workshop
Devoxx Morocco
Playing with Fire : Build a Web Application with Firebase
Serverless Architecture Conference
Serverless for Startups
Playing with Fire : Build a Web Application with Firebase
IndyGCP Meetup
Building a Web Application with Firebase
Develop Denver
Agile for Remote Teams
Private agile event hosted by GE
Agile for Remote Teams
Cincy Deliver
Leadership or Landmines? Paving the way for innovation
From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read
AgileIndy Conference
Agile for Remote Teams
Serverless Architecture Conference
Serverless for Startups,
Panel - Learning and Unlearning: How does 'Serverless' change the software development process?
Code Camp Vegas
Stop Keeping the Lights On
Cream City Code
Real-World Serverless Architecture
Cincinnati Day of Agile and Cincy.Develop()
Better Names for Better Code
Agile for Remote Teams
Indy.Code()
How to Transition Leadership (without pissing off the team), Care and Feeding of Your Developers
Code PaLOUsa
Optimize for Readability
Dev Up
Introduction to Online Security, Playing With Fire: Firebase Workshop
Prairie.Code()
Developers are People Too, Introduction to Java Web Security
KCDC
Playing With Fire: Firebase Workshop, Java Web Security: Tools & Tips
Code PaLOUsa
Understanding Online Security, Playing With Fire: Firebase Workshop, Get Real! Build Real-Time Apps with Firebase, Stop Keeping the Lights On
Music City Code
Understanding Online Security
Indy.Code()
Playing with Fire: Firebase Workshop, Stop Keeping the Lights On
Indiana IT Symposium
Managing Distributed Teams
Code PaLOUsa
Java Web App Frameworks
Brownsburg CoWork
Understanding Online Security
Java User Group
Java Web App Frameworks
Java User Group
Security 101
Code PaLOUsa
Stop Keeping the Lights on
Java User Group
Robocode Workshop
Code PaLOUsa
Web & Database Load Testing with JMeter
Java User Group
Death of the Download
Java User Group
Web & Database Load Testing with JMeter
Code PaLOUsa
Production JVM
Java User Group
Production JVM